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Questions & Answers about Ek hoor oral kinders lag.
What does Ek mean in this sentence?
Ek is the first-person singular subject pronoun in Afrikaans; it corresponds to I in English.
What is the role of hoor here?
hoor is a perception verb meaning to hear. It introduces the sensory experience and is followed by the thing heard (object) plus a bare infinitive.
Why does lag come at the end of the sentence?
With verbs like hoor, Afrikaans uses the structure: subject – verb – (adverb) – object – bare infinitive. So lag (to laugh) is the infinitive complement and must appear at the end.
What does oral mean, and what part of speech is it?
oral is an adverb of place meaning everywhere or all around. It modifies the verb hoor to show location.
Why is there no article before kinders?
Afrikaans omits the indefinite article when referring to a group in general. Here kinders simply means children broadly, so neither ’n (a/an) nor die (the) is used.
Why isn’t there a te before lag (e.g. hoor kinders te lag)?
Perception verbs (like hoor and sien) take a bare infinitive, not a te-infinitive. Thus you say hoor kinders lag, never hoor kinders te lag.
Can I include dat and say Ek hoor dat kinders lag?
Yes. Inserting dat (that) is grammatically correct: Ek hoor dat kinders lag. Omitting dat is more idiomatic with perception verbs in casual speech.
How are hoor and lag pronounced?
hoor is [huːr], with a long oo (like English “who’re”) and a lightly rolled or guttural r. lag is [lɑχ], where a sounds like “father” and g is a throaty sound similar to the German “ch” in “Bach.”